


Nothing to Apologise For

by inkyfishes



Category: Ghosts (TV 2019)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:21:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26737303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkyfishes/pseuds/inkyfishes
Summary: Ghosts start Ascending, throwing The Captain into (gay) crisis.Alison is everyone's mum. Julian is a knob. Pat protec but Pat also attac.
Relationships: Alison/Mike (Ghosts TV 2019)
Comments: 36
Kudos: 165





	Nothing to Apologise For

"I've been reading this," Mike announced, unceremoniously, as Alison entered their bedroom that night. He was lying in bed. He gestured at his beaten Macbook Pro, his knees supporting it under the thick duvet.

"Mmm?" Alison probed politely, doing her bit as a considerate partner to support whatever had caught Mike's attention. It was probably the football.

Alison was far more concerned with the location of her hairbrush, which wasn't on the nightstand where she swore she left it. Perhaps Julian had prodded it off in one of his moods. She peered around the floor nearby, but no dice. And no hairbrush.

"Yeah. It says that there's ways to move on.... you know." Mike lowered his voice to a conspirative whisper. " _Them_."

"Them being?"

"The G-H-O-S-T-S."

"They can spell, you know. They're not dogs."

After a quick dart of her eyes to check that Thomas wasn't hiding anywhere, Alison bent over to search in the small gap between the underneath of the nightstand and the wooden floor. It's was always worth checking for Thomas; she was pretty sure such a provocative view of her backside would send the man into a spasm. 

Still no hairbrush. _Rats_.

"So... what do you think?"

"What do I think about what?"

"Moving them on?"

" _Oh_ ," Alison replied as her brain finally processes what Mike had been saying. "Oh. Um. I'm not sure, actually. You haven't seen my hairbrush, have you?"

"Isn't it on your nightstand?"

"That's where I've been looking." It's nice, Alison thought, to be reminded that they were both often so unaware of each other's needs. It definitely kept off the pressure to try and be a perfect partner. 

Alison blew her fringe out from her eyes as she got back to her feet. She batted the dust off the knees of her pyjamas. She sat on the bed next to Mike then dragged her fingers through her hair to clear the worst of the knots. She didn't have the fortitude to brave the rest of the Hall to keep searching; their finances afforded them to keep only one room warm at a time and, during a late November night, Button Hall was brutally cold.

Mike turned the laptop towards her, giving her a view of a very basic by-the-numbers webpage which proclaimed paranormal expertise. Alison didn't bother to read any of it; at the very start of all of this, she had looked through all the websites Google gave her on ghosts and found none of what they said to agree with her own personal experiences. No one on the internet said anything about the endless bickering over day-time television presenters, the heated arguments which would dissolve into slap fights, the trouserlessness of the true ghostly experience. 

"I don't know whether it's worth putting much stock into what you read on the internet, to be honest."

Mike looked unconvinced. "But don't you think it's worth trying? I'm not saying this because I want them gone. I'm just saying -" Mike made a frustrated noise. "I'm saying that... if I died, right? If I died, I don't think I would want to spend eternity in Surrey. Especially without -"

Mike paused and Alison filled in the gap with her own thoughts. _Especially without you._ Sometimes, he was too sweet. She got into bed proper, enjoying the heat Mike had already brought to the usually freezing bed. 

"I'll ask them tomorrow whether they want to think about it."

Mike looked triumphant. 

*

"Nope!"

"Nuh-uh."

"No thank you!"

"Oh, no."

"Outrageous!"

"That's a negative from me."

"My word, no!"

"Nooooooooooooooooooooo," Julian drowned the rest of the protesting voices out with a booming moan. Alison fixed her polite smile ever so more firmly onto her face. "Honestly, what a nasty thought. I spend all of my life avoiding accountability, now you're suggesting that I _volunteer_ myself for the final stint in the dock?"

"It was just a thought -" Alison tried, but was quickly interrupted by Kitty's indignant squeak.

"It would be so awful not to be here anymore! Unless," a paralysing fear seemed to overtake her; Kitty's expression crashed three floors. "Oh, you don't want us here? Don't want _me?_ Here?"

"Kitty, of course that isn't the case," Alison gushed, reassuringly. Kitty's hands were already flapping in front of her eyes, stemming the approaching tears, but her expression seemed to brighten a little. "I promise, this isn't about clearing you out - or trying to get you to answer for your crimes -" Alison added, for Julian, who looked smug at being referenced individually. "We just want you all to be at peace."

"Peace!" the Captain barked a laugh. "Nonsense idea. Life is constant conflict."

"Ye-es, but technically, _technically_ Captain, this isn't your life."

No one in the room seemed to have any answer for that. Alison turned to Pat, ever the mediator, who had the same cheerful grin splashed his face as he always did.

"Pat?"

"Ohh, I don't know," Pat half-laughed. It looked like he expected someone to interrupt him. When nothing came, he coughed and continued. "Erm. Well, I have thought about it. They used to say, you know, on the telly. About... unfinished business. And I did think just a touch about it during my first years but -" Pat shrugged his shoulders, smiling. "I think I'm happy here. I mean, watching you two - a young couple. You'll have kids soon! I'm looking forward to that. Can't miss that."

Alison tampered down the alarm which came with the idea of any small children being in any way observed by a man shish-kabobbed by an arrow. Reminded herself that the sentiment was nice and not intended to be creepy.

"What is un fin nin buzz buzz?" Robin grunted. 

"Unfinished business," Alison said, after a pause for decoding. "It means that there's something to do in this life which is holding you back from moving onto the next."

The idea seemed to confuse him. "No understand. Only somethin' to do for me was to kill boar. I kill boar. I kill _many_ boar. Still here."

"Beggin' your partden, Aly-son," Mary said, catching Alison's attention. She was twisting her hands in front of her, matching the way the words always seemed to be wrenched from her. "I dunno much about buzzin' but it sounds lyke you're spekan about askin for forgiveness from those that you wronged to put your soul at rest."

"Yes, Mary. Exactly," Alison beamed.

Mary looked nervously between the group. "An' you see, that mayed be the problem. We ain't the ones that done the wronging."

*

"It's so awful," Alison said to Mike over a dinner of microwaved Tesco lasagne and from-the-bag salad. "I'd never thought of it much before, but I think Mary's right. They are all such nice people - except maybe Julian. From the stories they've told me... their lives were so tragic, their deaths more so. I don't think they have things they need to do to move on. What if it is the actions of other people that's keeping them here?"

"It's pretty scary," Mike said, pulling off a segment of re-heated garlic bread. "You think like, no matter what happens you'll die on your own terms. No one can take your afterlife from you."

"Evidently not the case," Alison shuddered. "I mean, they don't seem too sad about it, at least. I don't think any of them think they're trapped here. So maybe we don't -"

"Ah - Alison?" Alison lifted her head to the sound of Thomas' panicked voice a few seconds before he burst through the wall in front of her. His eyes were wide and he had gone as white as a... ghost. "I think we need you in the parlour!"

*

Alison expected a fire, so it was very surprising to run into the room and see nothing out of the ordinary. She halted Mike, who was following with the fire extinguisher already off-safety, brandishing it like a weapon in front of him.

The ghosts were all in a circle, surrounding a void on the floor. There was nothing there, but each of them were transfixed on it. Even Thomas, who was re-joining the circle, was looking down with his hand covering his mouth in either dismay or horror, Alison couldn't tell.

The Captain was bent down on one knee in front of it, like he had been investigating. He groaned as he got to his feet, turning to Alison with a most peculiar expression. A cross between excitement, fear and panic. 

"I'm afraid it's Humphrey. He's just. Moved on."

*

The ghosts wouldn't talk about it. It was the first time Alison had tried to attempt conversation to have it rebuffed, rather than the other way around. Almost a novelty. Alison would have considered it a brief respite, if it wasn't under such weird circumstances.

The only person Alison could get within the vicinity of before they would run (everyone but Pat) or try and hide behind the sofa (Pat) was Fanny. Alison found her standing, primly proper as always, just outside the front door to the hall. Surveying her grounds. Alison stood beside her, tried to take in the view with her, cautious not to startle (ironic). It was very close to sunset, a pink glow taking root over the farmland opposite. 

"It's the oddest thing," Fanny finally said after minutes of not speaking. She sounded less sharp. Using her actual voice, rather than a class affectation, maybe. "I always wondered why God did not gather me into his arms. It never occurred to me that I might have to _ask_ to be carried."

Alison held off speaking for a little longer, aware the silence was precious and delicate.

"Is that what Humphrey did? He asked."

Fanny blinked, looked down at her hands. "None of us are out of God's reach. Perhaps that is the sin; that we believe ourselves to be so?"

Alison held her gaze and, for the first time, felt a kinship. There was something about Alison's grandmother in Fanny's softened expression. A memory of a distant aunt in her tight brow.

"I'm sorry this has been so hard for you," Alison said, feeling like she was speaking to the lineage which connected her branch of the family tree to the woman standing in front of her. "I don't know anything about god. I wish I could give you some answers."

"Life is wasted on the living," Fanny said, with a little familiar vitriol, but then mused: "But perhaps that doesn't mean we should waste our death being bitter over it."

Alison smiled to herself and opened her mouth to reply that she should give that line to Thomas, but by the time she had turned back, the sun had become a sliver over the farmland and there was no one next to her.

*

At this point in the week, panic descended.

The remaining ghosts had been whipped up into a frenzy. One of them - Julian, it was _always_ Julian - had given them the idea that they were being picked off one-by-one like American teenagers in a horror film. Kitty was terrified of being left alone and would scream when she lost sight of anyone, including when she blinked for too long. Mary was muttering constantly, saying prayers under her breath and tugging on her clothes. Julian, Pat, Thomas and The Captain were in an unending cycle of planning action, undermining the planned action and re-planning the action.

The only one who wasn't panicking was Robin. He was staring at the chessboard, planning his next move. Alison skirted around the newest argument and offered her services to move the next piece. Robin grunted and gestured to what he wanted - capturing one of the last white pawns.

"Doing well?" Alison attempted, cheerfully ignoring the screaming as Thomas began hyperventilating a few feet from where they were standing.

Robin shrugged. "Crazy house. Always like this when people go."

"Then it's decided!" The Captain shouted, slicing through all arguments. "We all stand watch together. Whatever this is, if we approach it unified then our weakest ends won't be made vulnerable."

"I don't think you need to be afraid of this," Alison tried. She got nothing but panicked or angry looks from the lot of them. "Mary - you told me about your friend. She moved on, didn't she? This isn't a new thing."

Mary nervously moved from foot to foot, looking nervously at the ghosts around her.

"A-aye, tis true. Was not the first nor would be the last."

Alison beamed. Finally, something to think positively about. "And do you think she went to a better place?"

"Oh, I wouldn't be able to tell yeh," Mary said, blushing. "Thems thoughts are for much bigger heads than myune."

"But surely you have an idea of it? How do you feel -"

"NO!" the Captain suddenly shouted. He leapt between Mary and Alison, blocking their views of each other. "None of this! This is what happened to Fanny!" He turned to Alison and pointed in her face, nostrils flaring. "You forced Fanny into serenity and pushed her to the other side! You were there when it happened! You are the murderer!"

Everyone - apart from Robin and Alison - gasped.

"Well, not the murderer. Her murderer was her husband," The Captain re-evaluated. "But still! I accuse you of wilful allo-ascension! Alter-ascension?" The Captain paused. " _Drat_. It has been some time since Latin."

"I didn't mean to bring her peace. We were just talking -"

"Settled then!" Julian yelled. "No one who values their afterlife should talk to her! Ever!"

*

"I mean, I'd consider that a giant win," Mike said in bed that night, after Alison had recounted the day (or, rather, the half of the day he hadn't been able to see). 

"They're _terrified_ of me."

"Big scary Alison. The paranormal quake when they see her."

"Oh, hush," Alison blushed. She looked around the room from the bed, put every corner under scrutiny. "Although, if they are insistent on keeping far away from me... we might be guaranteed some privacy for a change."

Mike's brain took a few seconds to catch up. When it finally did, Mike started tugging his boxers off like a man possessed.

(No pun intended.)

*

Alison supposed that sex with ghosts in the house was probably a lot like sex with small children in the house. It involved a lot of mid-thrust pausing and intense listening, wondering what was a creak and what was someone about to bust through a wall to complain about someone not playing fair in the rock-paper-scissors tournament.

Alison found herself thinking that the added drama, the naughtiness of perhaps being caught in flagrante, added a little bit of heat to it. But any thoughts of ghosts were banished to the back of her mind as Mike's hands dug into her hips, his mouth found her neck and his fingers found all the other parts.

*

The next morning, Alison felt soft and vulnerable. She drunk tea in her fluffiest dressing gown, blushed as Mike strode around the kitchen with a renewed sense of machismo. It was almost a normal morning, until The Captain walked through the door, cane outstretched, as if warning off an impending snake.

"I want to propose a temporary ceasefire. So... you can come and put the telly on for us."

Alison felt charitable. "Cap wants me," she clarified when Mike questioned her standing up with an eyebrow.

"Don't call me that," the Captain snapped as he passed through the door and Alison opened it behind him. "Makes me sound like the whoseawhatsit Yank from the pictures."

"Sorry. Hang on. This is so embarrassing, but I don't think - I don't think you've actually told me your name."

The Captain stalled before the next door. Alison swore she saw his left hand begin to tremble before he grasped it in his right. He didn't turn to her.

" _The Captain_ will be fine."

*

Months passed, things happened. They held three successful weddings - successful being that they got the majority of the fee and no brides ran screaming from the estate.

Over those months, most of the ghosts with the sole exception of The Captain gradually resumed talking to her. The Captain would still only issue orders, with minimal politeness, and never remain in the same room if there was any other alternative. There was very little Alison could do, so she carried on as well as new-normal allowed.

During the last wedding of the summer season, a large white marquee was set up, adorned with red and pink roses and surrounded by bales of fresh hay. One of the grooms worked in animal rescue and was so passionate about the cause that Button Hall (in the true #TheButtonHallExperience way) had been pleased to host a three generation family of Alsatians for the after party.

Alison was secretly pleased about the dogs, assuming it would be right up The Captain's street to see a military breed he could rant about. As everyone - humans and animals - decanted the minibus for the marquee, the ghosts poured out of the hall to greet the guests. Alison saw with delight that The Captain was accompanying them, stubbornly trudging down the paved road.

Then, he lifted his head. Stopped in his tracks. Frozen.

Did he not like dogs? Alison spun around. The dogs weren't even out yet, still frantically barking in the back of a Land Rover Discovery. The only people that were out were the wedding party. In particular, the groom and groom who were linked arm in arm and already a little tipsy - 

"Oh, _fuck_ ," Alison swore, clasping her hands to her face. Had it not come up before in all their planning? Surely, he knew that there were two grooms? No, he had been out of all of the conversations, hadn't he? Because he was keeping his distance.

"ALISON!" Pat's startled shout echoed her back to reality. The Captain had turned on his heel and was running back up to the Hall. Pat was gesturing impotently at his back. The rest of the ghosts seemed confused, oblivious to what was happening, apart from Julian who was laughing and making an obscene gesture with his hands.

"It's because he's a bender!" Julian yelled, mirthfully. 

Alison didn't have time to signal to Mike that there was a ghost emergency; she took off after Pat who was running as fast as his shorts would allow. She drove herself purposefully through Julian as she passed him, hoping the discomfort doubled him over.

The chase was short but Alison was still winded by the time she reached the Hall's main entrance. It had been quite a few years since cross country. Pat, unaffected by the exercise, was standing helplessly in the hallway.

"I don't know what to do!" 

"Where does he usually hide?" Alison asked, quickly.

"I don't know!" Pat whined, uselessly flapping his hands.

"Right. Shall we start from the first floor?"

They ran up the stairs quickly, Alison missing one step for every two and Pat floating through most of them. They took one side of the main hallway each. With no need to use doors or obey walls, Pat cleared the left side before Alison had got halfway through the right, so they were both together when Alison opened the door and saw The Captain's army-issue boots sticking out from below a large, dark-wood wardrobe.

"He's in the closet," Pat hissed, pointing unnecessarily. 

Now they had found him, Alison realised she had no idea what she wanted to say. To apologise? To sympathise? This seemed far beyond her pay grade as an impromptu medium. Not that she had ever been paid.

"We found you using a pincer movement," Alison started. Pat nodded her on, encouragingly. "Pat from one end, me from the other. Thought it, um..."

"Would be the best use of our limited resource. If we attacked you from two sides, then we could cut you off from any retreat!" Pat finished.

The boots didn't move.

Alison approached the wardrobe cautiously. She didn't want to open it. It felt invasive. The ghosts had limited privacy as it was. No autonomy.

They waited for what felt like hours but couldn't have been longer than a few minutes. They heard the yapping of dogs in the grounds. The squeal of small children. The popping of champagne. Alison knew that Mike would have started to wonder where she was. Maybe started to worry.

Alison felt her pockets for her phone, but it was dead.

"Pat, could you go and get someone to activate the Alarm?"

The _Ghost Emergency Alarm_ was the best of Mike's Frankenstein DIY creations. Alison didn't understand how it worked, but it was a large black box which was mounted at the front door, with three sensors attached. The first was a button, which Julian could easily work. The second was a smoke detector, which Mary could trigger if she needed to. The third was an electronic circuit, which could be disrupted by Robin. If any of the sensors were triggered, both Alison and Mike would get text messages which let them know something was wrong. After the first predictable month of boy-cries-wolf abuse, they had all started using it as intended - for emergencies only.

Pat looked from her to the wardrobe and back again.

"Are you going to be alright?"

"Yeah," Alison smiled with all the self-confidence she didn't have.

Pat gave her a double thumbs up and moved out of sight.

Alison breathed steadily out and sat down on the floor in the doorway. She crossed her legs and put her back against the doorframe. She could see that The Captain's boots were straight. He was standing up. Had been all this time.

"Does it tire you to stand up?" Alison asked into the quietness. "I can't find enough time to sit around nowadays. Rushed off my feet. I can't imagine not being able to sit on a sofa." Alison paused. "Sorry, I was trying to be conversational and it's come out wrong."

Silence.

"I guess in the army you stand a lot anyway, so maybe your legs are stronger than mine?"

Silence.

"Although one sided, this is the longest conversation we've had for a while. You're not running away. Are you not scared I'm going to... push you fully off this mortal coil, or however you described it?"

Silence.

"I want to help you."

"This is an appalling trick." _Finally._ Alison breathed in relief.

"What trick?"

"Holding a wedding like this."

There was no point feigning ignorance. "We've had a gay wedding before. The first one."

"That wasn't -" The Captain cut himself off. His left boot moved incrementally from its stock-still position. Then, it moved incrementally back. "That wasn't the same."

"It wasn't on purpose. I didn't know you didn't know. And those guys- Derrick and Andrew - they love each other. You should come hear -"

Alison jumped as The Captain snapped down his boot with a thump.

" _Shut it!_ I'm not listening to any of your - any of you defending any of that - that perverted, disgusting, shirt-lifting -"

"No you listen!" Alison snapped, scrambling to her feet. "Enough of this, alright! They're _gay_ , some people _are gay_ and now we, in the twenty first century that you are living in - dying in - fuck's sake, _that you are existing in_ , we celebrate that fact in weddings and in ceremonies with a load of huge dogs that I've just left Mike to deal with all on his own because I just knew you would be upset about it. You can self-hate all you want but don't you _dare_ say such horrible things about those people down there because they don't deserve it."

"What do you mean self-hate?!" The Captain's voice came back, frantic, accusatory and defensive. 

"Because you're gay!" As soon as the words came out of Alison's mouth she regretted them. She clasped her hands to her mouth, but the damage was done. It was like the act of shouting them had painted them on the walls. "Oh god. Oh god, oh god. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry you can't come to this realisation on your own. I wished so much that you would. Pat and I were trying so hard -"

"Pat?" The Captain said quietly, like something had taken his voice.

"He knows," Alison felt tears prickling at the sides of her eyes. This was the worst thing she had ever done. "I think everyone does, but I only talk about it with Pat. We only talk about how we can make it easier on you. What movies we need to avoid. Pat's got an encyclopaedic memory for it. It's getting harder with all the new releases. Sorry, I don't know why I'm talking about movies."

Silence again. But a different one. Alison saw the Captain's boots move, saw his body slide half out of the wardrobe. Then, he was all out. Crumpled. The Captain's entire body seemed knocked out of all wind. His eyes were rimmed with pink, his face flushed. Alison realised, too late for either of them, that he had been silently crying the entire time he had been in there. Trying to hold it together. Failing to.

Alison would have traded anything she had to have the power to grab him right then. Hug him hard.

"The worst part," the Captain said. He covered his eyes with a large hand, as if sight was too painful. "The bloody worst part is that I was just seventy years too late. _Just seventy years._ " The Captain's breath rattled inside him, like he was dislodging a weight. "Not even a _generation_ _later_ , we could have been - I would have been -"

"I'm so sorry," Alison said, although she didn't know what she was apologising for. For human history, maybe. For how slow it had been.

"All of them -" Alison knew he was referring to the other ghosts "- they won't understand this. New developments are a fascination to them. But I hate this. _I hate this so much_. I hate that those chaps can just -" The Captain swallowed, bitterly. "They can do everything that I couldn't. I went to the grave like this. They don't have to. How is that fair? _How. Is. That. Fair?_ "

"Alison!" Pat yelled from down the hallway. "I'm so sorry Alison, Julian is being a dickhead and I can't get Robin away from the dogs -" he skidded to a stop when he saw the state of them both, like a rabbit in the headlights. A rabbit in a cub scout uniform.

"Pat, I am _begging_ you to give him a hug right now," Alison pleaded between her own tears.

Pat nodded an uncountable number of times and dropped to the ground in a way that would have skinned his knees, if that were at all possible. The Captain collapsed against him, burying his face in his shoulder (uncomfortably close to the arrow), his shoulders rocking with sobs.

Pat gently rubbed him, looking at Alison with wide-eyed confusion. Alison shook her head, unable to help. There were no words. No words.

*

Eventually, Mary was persuaded to set off the alarm, running through it several times whilst screaming. It turned out that all the dogs were extremely well trained (especially with Robin's extra direction), so Mike didn't need Alison for anything. Which was good, because it was another four hours before Pat or The Captain or Alison left that room.

They talked and talked and talked. About the most important things and the least important things and everything in-between.

The Captain's name was Ben.

At the end of it, all three of them exhausted, Ben went for a walk to collect his thoughts, what remained of his dignity. Perhaps to drop in on the dogs.

That left Alison and Pat sitting at the top of the stairs in companionable silence.

"I thought you were going to use your powers." Pat waggled his fingers, demonstratively. Alison must have shown her confusion. "You know. Moving people on. That sort of thing. I'm - I'm surprised he's still here, actually. I always had the niggling feeling that, if he did finally address it, it'd kick him over."

"I think that's what he thought too. Why he didn't want to be around me. I hope he does move on, some time. He deserves to rest. But -" Alison said, smiling. "It might be nice to get to know Ben."

*

Two months later, Alison was humming softly to herself as she watched the ghosts from her laid out position on the sofa. They were nattering and shouting and yelling. She was feeling particularly relaxed, particularly sated, in satisfaction of the new normal.

Robin approached her cautiously, his nostrils flaring. After a few seconds, his expression changed to one of understanding.

"What?" Alison murmured, smiling.

Robin mimed a bump over his stomach.

Alison shook her head quickly, gestured for him to come closer.

"Yes! But be discreet - no one else knows," she whispered into his ear.

Robin nodded sagely. "Good move. Rest of hall will go crazy. Enjoy while lasts."

Alison moved along, letting Robin hover on the seat next to her. 

"You know, we never really got to the bottom of why ghosts move on."

"It was how Mary say. We are not the ones who do wrong. So, we cannot do right to move us along. But we can forgive who do wrong. Takes time. Some take long. Some take not so long. Depends how deep they have wronged us." Robin grunted. "Boar who got me cut me deep. Takes me long time."

**Author's Note:**

> Two years of fanfiction sobriety and a BBC sitcom with a closeted gay character pulls me in once again. /_\
> 
> I've done that thing of calling the character with no canon name by the name of the actor, hope that's cool.
> 
> I'm not sure of the health and wealth of the fandom - hello! Hope you all enjoy!


End file.
